We are having friends over to share our Thanksgiving turkey. I have made a basket o' plenty (not having a horn at hand) full of garden and market produce. It's quite lovely; it has a festival squash, a cucumber, a zucchini, a tomato, a pear, an apple, 3 carrots and 2 sprigs of parsley. My 11 year old son has made apple crisp. I'm planning on making Honey pumpkin pie. Doesn't it look beautiful? The recipe is here. The turkey with THE dressing recipewill go in at about 1:30 and we will have garlic mashed potatoes/yams along with Carrots baked with thyme, cumin and chardonnay; brussels sprouts with dijon mustard; plain green peas; gravy (of course). I think that should be enough, don't you? MrBrown just reminded me that we will also have an appetizer of hummus prepared with his own hands and vegetables and maybe corn chips.

We were very radical with our Thanksgiving dinner and DIDN'T serve turkey. Instead, we started with smoked quails (marinated in teriaki sauce) served on a bed of grilled zucchini, red pepper, eggplant, red onion and mushrooms with French-style rustic bread.

(We WERE going to have appetizers of cranberry bean and garlic dip with pita chips but somebody - whose name begins with ll - burned them and there were no more pitas to make new chips. We decided that pita chips and bean dip were probably going to be too much of a good thing - if pita chips are even any good... )

Then (in case that wasn't enough already!) we continued with grilled salmon steaks with basil pesto (made with pecans, peccorino and zero cream) and/or green peppercorn mayonnaise and steamed green beans. Pesto on bread is amazing!

Dessert was a spectacular apple tart followed by fresh figs with goat cheese.

The dinner was brilliant. My friend offered to help in the kitchen, as guests often do, so I asked if she was good at making gravy. She said that she makes good gravy. She was wrong, she makes FANTASTIC gravy!! I didn't notice what she was doing as I was fussing with taking the dressing out of the turkey but it was amazing!! She was a little apprehensive about her children (8 and 11) eating any vegetables. She said, "They won't eat any vegetables, please don't be offended." I reassured her that I would not be offended but I was pretty sure they would eat the plain small green peas. She looked doubtful and shook her head. My own child ate all vegetables (except the brussels sprouts) with gusto. Her two children looked at the orange mashed potatoes/yams with trepidation but gamely gave them a try (only to have more!) and they ate the carrots and the peas. Their mother was amazed and asked me how I did it. I explained that it wasn't me that did it, it was their friend, my son, who said, "oh, I LOVE these carrots! Peas!! I love peas! Thanks for making peas, Mom!" What advertising! It was only after eating 3 or 4 carrots that a visitor child noticed there were "green bits" and said, "What is this in the carrots? Do I like it?" I'm sorry to say that I laughed out loud.

And the pie! The pie was exactly as pictured and it had a lovely flavour. Our friends are British and had never had pumpkin pie before. She thought it was lovely, he didn't try it. The children both tried it because again, my boy was panting to have pumpkin pie and had two largish pieces. The visitor children hated it but they loved the whipped cream and the apple crisp.

The wonderful thing about having a traditional turkey dinner is that today, we'll have turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, chip sandwiches for lunch and then leftovers for dinner. I'll fry the yampotatoes up with some onions and more garlic. Mmmmm

Sounds like a wonderful meal. I regret very much that my clan and I could not be there. We did have a traditional meal with a large crowd in Edmonton, it was a classic prarie fall day with brilliant sushine and golden leaves underfoot.

We don't a fun harvest time celebration. All we do is give surplus to the poor and needy, read extracts from the bible and look solemn. Well, some people do.

David, it's high time that you added having a feast to celebrate giving surplus to the poor and needy, reading extracts from the bible and looking solemn. Of course, it's difficult to look solemn when one is stuffing one's face with pumpkin pie.

MrsBrown wrote:

And the pie! The pie was exactly as pictured and it had a lovely flavour.

We were so entranced by the idea of pumpkin pie that yesterday, we went to the corner variety store (the only store that was open) and bought their last tin of pumpkin and last container of whipping cream. Don't ask how much we paid.... And came home and made pumpkin pie, based on a recipe in The Joy of Cooking.

We don't a fun harvest time celebration. All we do is give surplus to the poor and needy, read extracts from the bible and look solemn. Well, some people do.

Hmm, that's really too bad. And interesting, because I think Canadian thanksgiving is based on Harvest festival in the Anglican church calendar. I've never heard the bits about looking solemn -- but a lot of wheat stalks, pumpkins and carrots all over the churches.

I think UK has some cool festivals that we don't have in Canada -- but what?

The next thing in Canada is Hallowe'en which is becoming a more commercial thing. My daughter is planning an elaborate costume made up of things in our rather large trunk of costumes, wigs and props used on various occasions.

Last edited by CAM on Sat 30 Dec, 2006 1:34 pm; edited 1 time in total

We had our all our Pagan celebrations hijacked by the Christian Church but the old stuff is still there below the surface for example Yuletide (decorated trees, mistletoe, mid-winter feast). Halloween never used to be isn't much of a big deal seeing as it's just another normal work day but with al the American TV shown over the decades we're starting doing the Trick-or-Treat thing (or demanding money with menaces as it used to be called) in recent years. Our next celebration after that is Bonfire Night (5 Nov) which officially celebrates the failure of a Catholic plot to blow up parliament but it's just an excuse to build giant community fires and detonate huge amounts of gunpowder in the sky. I am rather too keen on this than is healthy.